Share this:

Like this:

Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.

The less money the NPS gets the better. Too much NPS money goes for bureaucratic empire building and what Ed Abbey called “industrial tourism.” No park should be given a budget increase unless that increase includes a 37% increase for staffing the naturalist/interpretation division. We need on-the-ground naturalists in Yellowstone, not a $4.8 million visitor center at Old Faithful that shows videos of geysers rather than providing visitors with a real live naturalist who takes them for a walk in a geyser basin.

Hiring workers such as naturalists will create more employment than new heavy construction.

However, there is a dire need for new buildings at Mammoth in Yellowstone, and the sewage system in Yellowstone is antique, all too often spilling raw sewage into what should be relatively pristine waters.

What Chuck says is partly true but, case in point, is the visitor center at Dinosaur Monument. For those of you who have not been, this was a great closed but open structure that allowed you to be part of a dino dig. It was one of the best teaching tools of the monument. But it was declared structurally unsafe a few years ago and, of course, has been left closed to rot away by the Bush team while, of course, they were raking in $$ from selling nearby oil and gas leases. It should be fixed up and re-opened. So some structures are worth investing in.

The Park Service–like the other land management agencies–is simply fulfilling its purpose as codified by law (specifically, the Organic Act of 1916). NPS’s “dual mandate” is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic
objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the
enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such
means as will leave them unimpaired for the
enjoyment of future generations.”

Here is a Park (Rainier), that while a Mr. Uburuaga was Manager – I think he is now moving onto Yosemite – got a 22 million dollar visitor center. Don’t know if he is related to Dirk Kempthorne’s ex-staffer or not.

A few highlights:
–NPS is responsible for 3.6% of all lands in the U.S.
–NPS currently maintains 27,000 structures; including 8,500 monuments and statues, 7,600 buildings, 1,800 bridges & tunnels, 680 water treatment facilities, 8,500 miles of roads, and 12,000 miles of trails.
–It does this with ~20,000 full time employees.

I don’t think any agency has enough funding…this has been proven time and time again, the idea is good, but somehow the funding never comes through to the level to manage and administer them correctly..

All the money in the world won’t help the nps manage funding correctly. To use an admittidly extreme example, the cost of keeping Yellowstone’s Sylvan Pass/East Entrance open for a handful of snowmobilers in winter, is probably more than the entire Yellowstone budget for naturalists in the summer. Its a no-brainer to close Sylvan Pass in winter. NPS brass, apparently, has no brains. Or not enough balls to tell the business interests in Wyoming that insist on keeping Sylvan Pass open to bugger off.

JB–Did you ever think that maybe the NPS has too many structures? Grizzlies were listed as a threatened species in 1975, and 6 years later the NPS builds the monstrosity known as Grant Pillage in prime grizzly habitat. We didn’t need all those structures; it was just bureaucratic empire building.

Here’s another example of mismanaging the NPS budget for Yellowstone from former chief ranger Dan Sholly’s book Guardians of Yellowstone: “While the number of winter visitors seemed minuscule in comparison to the millions who came in the winter months, it really wasn’t to our budget. I had learned that it cost the park four dollars per summer visitor to keep them and their facilities healthy, while it cost thirty dollars per winter visitor.”

Calendar

Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."